Half CA 2 review: This Ahsaas Channa starrer delivers relatable drama with heart but treads familiar ground

Starring Ahsaas Channa and Gyanendra Tripathi, TVF’s Half CA 2 balances student struggles and romance with stellar performances, though predictability lingers.

Few makers in the OTT space have mastered the slice-of-life genre and got us hooked to stories exploring the heart of India like TVF has. After all, who doesn’t love some raw, relatable, and emotionally grounded tales that have a lingering taste. The brand’s line-up of shows exploring the high-stakes academic and career pursuits has been a success as well, with Half CA, starring Ahsaas Channa, Gyanendra Tripathi, Prit Kamani, and others, being one of them. The show was hailed for offering an authentic and humane account of student lives which has barely reached the public eye before, as it explored the hardships, aspirations, and daily lives of students aspiring to become chartered accountants.

Directed by Pratish Mehta, Half CA 2 picks up where the first season left off, and features Archie Mehta (Ahsaas Channa) now balancing her hectic studies alongside a three-year articleship, where as, Niraj bhaiya (Gyanendra Tripathi) on the other hand gears up for a final attempt at the CA final exam, however his journey this time gets complicated with someone from his past resurfacing. How the duo navigates the challenges ahead entails the rest of the season.

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The season opens with Archie and Parth (Rohan Joshi) setting out to find an articleship and Niraj joining a new coaching centre. While the two struggle to find the opportunity, Niraj is often teased about his repeated attempts in class. Just as their hardships, vulnerabilities and the added pressures of adjusting in a daunting city like Mumbai starts taking a toll on the aspirants, things take a positive turn as Niraj gets inspired to approach the exams without the baggage of his past failures or people's snarky remarks; the two youngsters finding articleship, warming the audience up to another quintessential TVF student centric web series that is heartwarming, inspiring and relatable despite feeling a tad preachy at times. 

Regular characters, student struggles and a blend of drama and humor are the three cornerstones of TVF shows exploring this theme and Half CA 2 does a fair job delivering on it. While Archie’s exhaustion, self-doubt and craving for the simple joys of life while balancing articleship and classes will be relatable to young professionals treading similar paths, Niraj's vulnerabilities as a grown up man still struggling to clear the most important exam of his career, with the added complication of getting a second chance in love, will hit home for countless adults of the country who are still figuring out the race of the life with society’s stopwatch constantly ticking in their ears. The series doesn’t shy away from giving Archie and Niraj’s respective romantic tracks the centrestage, lending the series a more humanised grounding rather than focusing entirely on the hustle. The tender moments between Archie and Tejas (Prit Kamani) and Niraj and Kavya (Aishwarya Ojha) inject the show with some drama and twists. 

​Ahsaas Channa's performance as Archie packs a punch yet again this season. The show showcases her in a more vulnerable yet determined light and her portrayal perfectly captures the pressures, anxieties and unwavering spark required for a CA aspirant to keep going. She makes Archie incredibly genuine and relatable with her subtlety and nuances. Gyanendra Tripathi as the muti-layered Niraj, who is a guiding light to Archie, and a complicated partner to his love-interest while being an aging aspirant battling roadblocks and loneliness on his own, delivers a stellar performance as well. 

While Half CA was a heartfelt and relatable drama that offered a fresh perspective into the demanding journeys of the aspirants without falling into cliches, Half CA 2 felt a bit familiar with its predictable plot and character development, but not without providing its loyal audience a promising climax and an intriguing base for next season. A crisp narration, powerful performances, and some endearing moments make this one a one-time watch. 

Half CA 2 is now streaming on Amazon MX Player!